Lonely Together
by Arctic Banana
Summary: Sniper didn't know why Scout chose him of all people to talk to, but once he started, it was clear he never had anyone else to talk to before.


_Wow, long time, no write._

 _This is a short drabble I wrote whilst taking a break from a much larger fic I'm working on. I don't know where it came from, the muse just suddenly hit me to write it completely out of nowhere. I pretty much just wrote it and posted it on a whim with little editing aside from turning to my roommate and saying, "Hey, read this before I post it."_

 _Speaking of, Nicole, I gift this fic to you because even though I view them in a platonic light, I know you don't, so this is as close to a Sniper/Scout slash fic as you'll get from me._

* * *

Maybe the empty seats surrounding him that not even Pyro would choose to sit in looked open and inviting. Maybe it was the fact that anyone else he spoke to that day told him they were either too busy to deal with him or straight up threatened him if he didn't leave. Maybe he should have said something to him to the effect of "Rack off!" when he sat down next to him instead of remaining silent like he did. Whatever the reason, Scout seemed to have decided that it was perfectly okay to sit with Sniper and yammer on about nothing in particular while he was trying to eat. He didn't even seem to notice that Sniper was silently glaring at him the entire time or the fact that everyone else was watching them in uncomfortable silence, waiting to see if Sniper would yell at him or threaten violence. Surprisingly Sniper said nothing. The second Scout finished eating, he ran off again, leaving Sniper to finally eat the rest of his lunch in peace.

This pattern continued over the course of a few days. Scout would catch Sniper by himself and would ignore the fact that he didn't offer a word to the one-sided conversation that he initiated. It was clear Scout never had anyone to talk to before now. The topics were all over the place, but much of it was complaints about his home life with seven older brothers, only three of whom didn't like to pretend that he didn't exist, and how they'd often ditch him while they ran off to do something he would have liked to participate in, or beat him up for no reason other than he was smaller and weaker than they were, or take his things and hide them, or chat up girls that they knew he had a crush on just to spite him. Sometimes he'd upset himself so much talking about it that he grew uncharacteristically silent for a moment and left before Sniper could see him crying.

Then after a week it stopped.

Scout avoided Sniper, leaving him to his loner self, and the sudden avoidance after several days of being bombarded with the makings of Scout's autobiography was jarring.

"Bet yer glad he's finally leaving you alone now, huh?" Engineer asked. Sniper said nothing. Engineer was neither surprised nor offended. Sniper rarely said a word to anyone unless it was to insult them or yell at them about what he thought they were doing wrong.

Later that night Sniper sat alone in his camper while everyone else was inside interacting with each other like normal human beings. No one questioned this antisocial behavior which was about as normal for Sniper as starting mulch fires in the front yard was for Pyro. It was just another fact of life for the team.

He wondered what time it was. The sun had gone down long ago and the chill of night had already set in. In the distance he could hear the high pitched death scream of a jackrabbit getting caught and torn to shreds by a pair of ravenous coyotes. The sound was distant but near enough that he couldn't help but wonder out of bile curiosity if he could see the carnage from here.

Sniper looked out his window and was surprised to see not the last dying moments of an unfortunate hare, but Scout sitting by himself several yards away. He was quite visibly shivering and probably wishing that he had a jacket right about now.

He flung the door of his camper open and shouted, "Oi! Scout! What are you doing out there all alone?"

Scout jumped, clearly not expecting someone to shout at him so late at night. "Thought you were asleep," he replied.

"So you were just gonna sit out here in the dark by yourself?"

"Well...yeah."

"It's cold. Get in here," Sniper waved him in.

Scout regarded him as though it were a trap. Usually when you heard about reclusive weirdos welcoming you inside their van, it didn't end well. It was cold and he felt he knew Sniper well enough to know he wasn't going to end up buried in a dark corner of the basement though, so he took him up on his offer. He gave Sniper a weird look when he got to the door. Sniper wouldn't realize until later that it was probably because his camper currently smelled like pot.

Even though he knew he was still about a year and several months short of being legally allowed to drink, Sniper offered Scout a beer knowing he'd already been stealing them from the communal fridge when no one was looking anyway.

"So what were you doing out there, really?" Sniper asked as he opened his own beer.

"I don't really have to spell it out for you, Snipes. The other guys don't exactly like me," Scout replied bitterly. "I don't think Pyro likes me, and Pyro likes everyone."

"Well you did call him a freak to his face instead of behind his back like everyone else," Sniper pointed out.

"How was I supposed to know he could understand everything I'm sayin'?"

Sniper took a swig of his beer, which was warm from sitting in his camper all day instead of in a fridge. "Okay, next question. How come you're sitting out there by yourself instead of badgering me like you always do?"

Scout suddenly looked uncomfortable, like a grade schooler who had just been put on the spot by his teacher after forgetting to do his math homework. "Well...I didn't think you liked me either."

"What gave you that impression?"

"You always looked like I was annoying you by talking too much, so...I just stopped bothering you."

"Scout, ya might have bothered me at first, but if I was annoyed by you yabbering on about the time your oldest brother locked you in a rabbit hutch so he wouldn't have to babysit you, I would have just pushed you out of the guard tower window."

Scout laughed. "You were actually listening? I thought you'd zoned out by that point."

"Well of course I was listening. I was always listening!"

"I'm surprised you didn't tell me to shut up. Everyone else does."

"Yeah, well, I'm not everyone else."

They sat there talking for a while, this time Sniper actually contributing to the conversation rather than sitting in silence while Scout did all the speaking. They spoke about anything from their mutual dislike of Spy to the time Sniper once shot his dad in the leg trying to kill a crocodile to his disturbing love of sheep (though he left some parts out). Though he never said anything to directly indicate it, it was apparent that Sniper was just as lonely as Scout was and at least some of his antisocial behavior was less because he didn't like company and more because he lacked the necessary social skills to actually interact with other people.

By the time either of them felt it time to end their unexpected get together, it was well into the early morning and they'd drank almost a full case of beer. Sniper watched Scout stumble off knowing that he probably shouldn't have given a kid who could probably get drunk off of half a wine cooler so much beer and worried that one of the others might catch him and want to know who gave it to him.

It was less because he was worried about getting in trouble for supplying alcohol to a minor and more that he was worried the others would find out that he actually had a weird soft spot for the kid.

* * *

 _I don't know why, but I always imagined Scout and Sniper as being the kind of vitriolic best buds who would constantly fight and argue with each other while people are looking and then secretly hang out together later when no one else is around. As far as the timeline goes, this drabble would probably take place pretty early on before the mercs mutually start to somewhat like each other._

 _Also the reason why Sniper is suddenly a stoner is because I once made the mistake of asking my roommate what she thinks he does in his camper all day._

 _ **An Addendum by Banana's Roommate, Nicole:** Think about it though! It's the late 60's! It makes perfect sense!_


End file.
